An affordable option for building a cheap home library, 20th-century hardcover publishers book series included reprints of classics and publisher’s back catalog titles as well as newly commissioned titles. A few series dominated, such as Everyman’s Library and the Modern Library, but there are many others. These pages document the diversity of 20th-century reprint book series. Click on a series below for more information about the series.

The Poetry Bookshelf

Heinemanns’ The Poetry Bookshelf, edited by James Reeves, was a post WW2 series, which published 42 titles between 1951 and 1996. The titles were distributed by and/or published by Barnes and Noble in the US. It is possible that most of the titles before 1963 were distributed by Barnes & Noble, probably with a sticker affixed to the dust jacket (as with the copy below). After 1963, most of the titles in the series seem to include the Barnes & Noble imprint.

Jackets are common to the series for the first few decades, following the design of Selected Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelly shown below. This title was first published in 1960. The series name is not included on the jacket spine, front or front jacket flap. The front jacket flap describes the book.

The back of the jacket repeats the title and author. The rear jacket flap lists titles in the series as of 1960 with editors, if the editor was other than Reeves. A sticker on the base of the jacket indicates this title was distributed in the US by Barnes & Noble. The Barnes & Noble imprint is not in the book itself, which was printed in the UK.

A complete list of titles in the series with, as far as I can determine, the initial year of publication: